Published on | Prototyping: From UX to Front End — Medium Alex Walters

A couple of years ago I was working on a film with my creative partner, a director. During the early stages of development, we went to a party in Soho at which my partner bumped into some industry types that he knew. After they had greeted each other, he turned and introduced me: “This is Alex, my writer.”

I gritted my teeth and did the usual round of pleasantries. Once the acquaintances were gone, I insisted that my partner and me have a “quiet word”. In the lavatories, summoning up the most creative swearing that I could, I made it very clear that calling me “his” writer was definitely not going to work for us. He apologised, we made the movie, and he never did it again.

I’m reminded of this story because I occasionally hear product managers make the same mistake, particularly during interviews. A candidate will be talking impressively about products they have shipped or features that they’re proud of without saying much about engineers or designers. When prodded, they will say things like:

“I have four developers”

“My developers are great”

“My developer gave me an estimate of three weeks”

“My designer doesn’t get on that well with my developers”

These statements, apart from being deeply patronising, show at best poor linguistic judgement and at worst a lack of understanding about what PMs do. Ever since Ben Horowitz used the fateful term “CEO of the product” to describe the role in his seminal and otherwise excellent essay “Good Product Manager/Bad Product Manager”, a lot of PMs seem to have mistaken the position for one imbued with great authority. It’s not. While you get the final say on what gets done and why, you don’t own the team — they own you.

Bring teams together to solve problems as equals

Product managers are not CEOs, they do not own the company, they do not hire and fire. Their job is to bring talented people together to solve problems as equals. The best product managers are servant-leaders. They guide the team, set clear, quantifiable goals and justify their decisions with data. They shield the team from bullshit, politics and interference, and take the flak when things don’t work out. When release day comes, or when great results come in, they are quick to pay the credit forward.

In the boardroom, at meetings and when interviewing for their next job, great product managers say “we” and “our”, not “I” and “my”.

Hey, Product Managers, that’s not “your” developer was originally published in prototypr on Medium, where people are continuing the conversation by highlighting and responding to this story.

Hey, Product Managers, that’s not “your” developer

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